Saxophone Forum

Need advice on a mouthpiece, gig bag, and reeds for my bari sax!

Hello, my name is Hannah and I just joined this forum! I'm a junior in high school, and I have been playing bari sax since January 2011. I'm often complimented on how warm my tone is on bari and I love playing such an amazing and unique instrument. I really want to get a degree in Music Therapy at University in Louisville, and I'd really love to also play in orchestras and the like when I'm in college. But anyways. Right now I'm looking for a new mouthpiece and reeds because I have All-District and All State auditions coming up in November and December, and I really want to upgrade. I believe the reed I'm using is a Legere size 3. Its great for marching band, I can belt out low A's like nobody's business. But I can tell my tone is nowhere near as pretty as it was, so I'm looking for a good plastic reed that will allow me to have a beautiful, resonate tone. I tried playing a natural reed for the first time in six months the other day, and I just couldn't do it. I don't know if its my new ligature or what (I also switched to a new ligature when I switched from natural to plastic), but I cannot get a tone out at all. Also, I need a new mouthpiece. Mine has gone through about seven marching seasons, I believe (this is it's second with me), and it has the plastic stuff on the top for your teeth to bite down on. Well, it used to..its all kind of rubbed off and its just gross and needs to be thrown away. So I'd love a good mouthpiece I can keep with me until college. I enjoy having a really warm tone. I don't know any other way to describe it. And a gig bag....I'd really love a gig bag because my case is so big and bulky. Most of our clinic stuff (All District, WKU Honors band, etc) is at Western Kentucky University. They're called the Hilltoppers because the campus is located on a huge hill...meaning its not very fun at all to carry your bari sax around at. So a good, quality gig bag that would effectively keep my bari safe and sound would be awesome, if someone could recommend one. I'd like to use it for the rest of high school but take it with me to college. Thanks so much!

TL;DR? I'm a high school junior looking to upgrade her bari sax equipment for the rest of her high school/college career. I need suggestions on new reeds that will give me a tone so resonate and pretty it could put a baby to sleep (perferably plastic), a new mouthpiece, and a gig bag.

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Re: Need advice on a mouthpiece, gig bag, and reeds for my bari sax!

As for Synthetic reeds, Legere is really great! You may also want to try the Legere signature series. These reeds were designed by an engineer using microfiber plastic technology which simulates natural fiber. I've been very impressed with Legere.

There are several affordable bari sax mouthpiece options. For an all around concert band type mouthpiece, I can recommend both the Vandoren Optimum series and the Selmer S80. For a mouthpiece to play in jazz band I would recommend Vandoren V16 series or Otto Link. Vandoren tends to be more consistent than Otto Link, but if you get a good Otto Link, it can be really good. Hard Rubber Berg Larsen would also be worth considering. A good mouthpiece can make a huge difference!

As for gig bags, I definitely don't recommend putting a bari sax in a soft gig case. There's too much of a chance for damage. However, there are several good options for contoured style hard-shell bari sax gig cases. The BAM Hightech bari case is the winner, but its also quite expensive. St. Louis Music makes a great lightweight hard-shell construction bari gig case. Also, Walt Johnson makes a great gig case, but its also rather pricey. For the dollar, the St. Louis Music gig case is very good.

You can check out all of these products on the saxquest.com web site. Please let me know if you have any other questions. Best of Luck!!